The film is examining a man through the figures he has scarved and painted on the rock. Cave paintings are mirrors through which ancient people are watching us as are actually watching them. Do we understand each other? Do we see ourselves in the Stone Age paintings? The film is a journey into the past and at the same time a portrait of a man, right here and right now.

Production: Giron-filmi Oy

Producer: Markku Lehmuskallio

KOSMA

Serbia, 2013, 75 min.

Screenwriter, director and director of photography: Sonja Blagojevic

The KOSMA radio network is the only link among isolated Serbian communities in Kosovo. Electricity and water cutoffs, attacks and protests are woven into simple human stories, acts and aspirations.In this place laden with rich history and tradition, the radio voices bear witness to human connections and ever-present hope.

Production: CVC KVADRAT

Producers: Zoran Popovic, Svetlana Popovic

ADAPTERS

Netherlands, Russia, 2012, 61 min.

Screenwriter and director: Oksana Maksimchuk

Director of photography: Ivan Finogeev

The Chinese have an black curse: «Living in times of changes for you!» — one of the six female characters saying with a sigh. They are of the same age, all of them born in Moscow, all are living in Europe metropolitan cities – Moscow, Paris, Amsterdam. A rhythm, style and way of life have nothing in common. The film, made of four women portraits is a peculiar portrait of a politico-psychological portrait of womankind of perestroika’s generation.

Production: OMAKS

Producer: Oksana Maksimchuk

THE SILENT PRAYS

Russia, Kirov, 2013, 39 min.

Screenwriter and director: Anton Pogrebnoy

Director of photography: Anton Pogrebnoy, Vladislav Usov

For many years an orthodox community for deaf and hard-of-hearing people was demanding the eparchial and city authorities for an opportunity to hold services in terms of the hand language. An acquaintance with a young priest Igor Shiliaev who had studied the language of deafs finally helped them make their dreams come true.

The story of Sonya Shatalova is a story of a girl with muteness and autism. For Sonya this film is the only way to share her vision and insights into the things that she sees and knows, that are not seen or known by others. The documentary is based on her diaries and poems. She wants to transmit a revealing and touching message, a message that may not be accepted by all the Russian society.

Production: ООО «ARTVIDEO»

Producer: Nikita Tikhonov-Rau

IN THE CANNES

United Kingdom, 2013, 30 min.

Screenwriters: Nick Calori, Stefano Lazzaro

Director and director of photography: Nick Calori

The documentary is about three friends from East London who travel to Cannes determined to sell their minuscule budget feature film in the biggest and most competitive film festival in the world.

Production: Shuffle Films

Producer: Nick Calori, Stefano Lazzaro

VALENKI

Russia, Moscow, 2012, 50 min.

Screenwriters and director: Elena Laskari

Directors of photography: Anna Artemeva, Petr Solovev

Once being a large boots rolling factory collapsed and turned into a small company, but people haven’t become «smaller». Valenki are not just the shoes for them but the meaning of life and a lifestyle. They understand their necessity. They work in hard working conditions in a collapsing building with the old facilities. They do not regret about their life, they are just glad.

Production: «KinoArtel» / «Tochka Zreniya»

Producer: Evgeniy Kokuseev

VOLGA-GARONNA

Belarus, France, 2013, 51 min.

Screenwriters and director: Vladimir Kozlov

Directors of photography: Irina Ivanova, Mateas Tuzeris

«Volga-Garonna» is based on the crossing stories about two emigrants. Irina Makeenko, born in France, in the age of 12 returned to USSR and Vladimir Kozlov, a film director, arrived in France after the USSR collapsed. Irina Makeenko’s parents are white emigrants living next to Tolouse since the lately 20s. They believed Stalin’s decree of 1947 and came back. 45 years after perestroika Vladimir Kozlov chose his emigrant’s way in the opposite direction hoping for better life.

Production: RUP «Belorusskiy videocentr», Les Docs du Nord

Producer: Yury Igrusha

STORM IN A WATER-BOTTLE

Russia, Nizhny Novgorod, 2013, 6 min.

Screenwriters: Jeduard Abubakirov, Evgeniy Strelkov, Vadim Filippov

Director: Evgeniy Strelkov

Director of photography: Dmitriy Hazan

The film is based on the eponymous short story from the book “Nizhe Nizhnevo (Lower than Nizhny)” by E. Abubakirov, E. Strelkov, and V. Philippov. It is an example of alternative local history of the Volga-Region. The historical facts here are intricately interlaced with the authors’ fantasy.

Production: Film studio «Zhirizhabl»

Producer: Evgeniy Strelkov

TWO SIDES OF ONE HORSE

Russia, Moscow, 2013, 43 min.

Screenwriter and director: Tatjana Soboleva

Director of photography: Ivan Finogeev

In order to understand what’s going on in Moscow these days simply going out into the street and looking around you or reading the news reports is not enough – those are only distorted views on reality. If you want to get to the essence, the best way is to change the point of view radically and look at things through the eyes of, say… a horse that serves in an operative battalion in the center of Moscow.

Production: «Tochka zreniya»

Producer: Ivan Tverdovskiy

DOMINO

Albania, 2013, 10 min.

Screenwriter and director: Taulan Zharri

Director of photography: Anxhela Dervishi

This documentary aims at pointing out the poverty phenomena faced by Albanian pensioners, whom, even as elderly, are very active in everyday’s life, not only as far as their own matters are concerned but also part of the political debates.

A film recounts a remarkable life as a creator of a film-director Rollan Sergienko based on the honest flashbacks of the director himself, his friends and comrades, such as Otar Ioseliani, Roman Balayan, Jemma Firsova, Michail Belikov, Haum Kleiman and others. The episodes disposed by the censor from Sergienko films were kept with care for all these years along with the rich photo archive.

Producer: Aleksey Sergienko

WE ARE!

Belorussia, 2013, 13 min.

Screenwriter and director: Zoya Kotovich

Directors of photography: Nikita Pinigin, Zoya Kotovich

All children like cartoons. And if they draw the cartoons themselves – it’s a miracle! Animation Studio «We are!» appeared just three years ago. One day a group of volunteers just decided to start an art therapy with children from the Children’s Oncology and Hematology Center in the village of Borovliany, near Minsk. Art therapy helps children to relax a nasty medical procedures. It helps them to develop imagination, to think about the future and not to withdraw into themselves. As long as we create – we live.

Production: RUP «Belorusskij videocentr»

Producer: Jurij Igrusha

FATHER

Lithuania, 2013, 13 min.

Screenwriter and director: Marat Sargsyan

Director of photography: Linas Dabriska

Vidas Zenonas Antonovas has been recorded in the book of the most interesting criminals of Soviet Union. He stole around a million rubles from the state’s institutions. Together with his accomplices, he hijacked a plane with passengers in order to split for Africa. He has been nicknamed “The Father of Mafia“. 20 years of his time he did in 15 different prisons. Now he is 71 and has a big family – 10 children, 2 grandchildren and a newborn son. It is a documentary about the values of an ex-con, about a man challenging time and destiny, about the drives of an insatiable lust for lifeabout. It is a love story of one family. There are neither romantic moments nor miraculous changes. But there is a strong potential to change our understanding about what happy and loving family is or could be.

Production: JUST A MOMENT

Producer: Dagne Vildziunaite

THE FIREPLACE

Russia, Moscow, 2013, 31 min.

Screenwriter, director and director of photography: Veniamin Tronin

Our film is about amateur artists in the small culture centre who attempt to survive in the elusive time. Maybe in the capitals with theatres and philharmonics they can exist without amateur performances but in province it is the main fireplace of beauty. This is a film about muddled man’s aspirations, figured out that being happy and being «big» are different things. They don’t coincide and even exclude one another. The film saying that not only art requires sacrifice but life creation has to be payed. It’s an attempt to understand, what is «big» and what is «small», relating to soul and motherland.

Production: ANO «Kinovideostudiya «Risk»

Producer: Olga Shaposhnikova

BEFORE YOU KNOW IT

USA, 2013, 92 min.

Screenwriter and director: PJ Raval

Director of photography: Mike Simpson

The subjects of BEFORE YOU KNOW IT are no ordinary senior citizens. They are go-go booted bar-hoppers, love struck activists, troublemaking baton twirlers, late night Internet cruisers, seasoned renegades and bold adventurers. It’s a film about generational trailblazers who have surmounted prejudice and defied expectation to form communities of strength, renewal and camaraderie. An affirmation of life and human resilience told with a refreshing humor and candor, BEFORE YOU KNOW IT confirms that you are never too old to reshape society.

Production: Unraval Pictures

Producer: Sara Guistini

HOLIDAY FOREVER

Belorussia, 2012, 39 min.

Screenwriter and director: Galina Adamovich

Director of photography: Tatyana Loginova

Svetlana Ben’ is a port, puppet theater director, soloist of the cabaret band «Silver Wedding». Those who know her a little call her simply Ben’ka. She was born in Vitebsk and lives and works in Minsk. She gives numerous concerts. The «Silver Band’ concerts were filmed in Belarus, Ukraine, Russia and France.At the festival of clowns-musicians in a Paris suburb she was received by the world-famous Vyacheslav Polunin.

The key to the communal laundry room in the block of flats on the Rue de Genève 85 in Lausanne serves a much greater function than merely unlocking the door. This encounter between a symbol of typical Swiss mentality with a penchant for order and the tenants who have been housed here by the city’s social services department is not something to be taken for granted. Although the laundry room is normally located in the cellar, the tenants in this building share a tiny laundry room in a hall because the cellar is reserved for prostitution. To maintain order and cleanliness, the landlord hires Claudina, a new «laundry woman»…

Production: Alina film, L’oeil sauvage

Producer: Eugenia Mumenthaler, David Epiney, Fred Feraud

SANCTUARY

Russia, Ekaterinburg, 2012, 26 min.

Screenwriter and director:Vladimir Golovnjov

Director of photography: Pavel Tihonov

The top of the mountain Kachkanar is the Sanctuary for some eremites. It is their shelter and rescue from difficult reality. Buddhist monastery was built 17 years ago there, but very soon this place will turn in huge industrial pit. Film about internal life of monks, their problems, weaknesses and struggle against civilization approaches.

Production: «A-Film»

Producer: Valentina Hizhnjakova

LEMON SELLER

Russia, St. Petersburg, 2012, 26 min.

Screenwriter and director: Maksim Jakubson

Director of photography: Mikail Kac

Roald Mandelshtam, a poet, lived in a post-war Leningrad. Since childhood he suffered tuberculosis of bone, rarely go outside and knew he’ll live a short life. Among his friends were Isaac Shvarts and artists that left their mark in history of art as «Arefiev’s circle» or «Begging artists order». 50 years later on one of the room walls under the wallpaper of that exactly shared apartments one found out a fresco «The Archers», made by one of Roald’s friends.

Production:St. PetersburgDocumentary Film Studio

Producer: Aleksej Telnova

SASHA, LENA AND THE IRON DRAGON

Russia, Moscow, 2012, 47 min.

Screenwriter, director and director of photography: Elena Demidova

Many five-story buildings was built in Moscow during the sixties of the last century. Now these houses are destroyed. Digger crushes concrete blocks like cardboard. He looks like a dragon. But Sasha and Lena don’t have place to go…

Production: ООО «Kamer-Ton-Film-Rus»

Producer: Anastasija Razlogova

FAMILY MEALS

Croatia, 2012, 50 min.

Screenwriter and director: Dana Budisavljevic

Directors of photography: Ana Opaliс, Tamara Cesarec, Eva Kraljeviс

Do you remember when was the last time you talked to your parents? What did you talk about? Did you go a step beyond weather forecast and daily politics? Can a conversation about buried family secrets help you eat without cramps in your stomach? Can a failed birthday cake help you embrace the past? A birthday celebration brings together an ordinary four member family five years after their last gathering. They start questioning what made them turn away from each other. Through the ritual of family meals, the film unveils how important it is to feel accepted by our loved ones.

Production: Taskovski Films Ltd

Producer: Olinka Vistica, Sophie De Hijes

SPACEDOG

Russia, Moscow, 2012, 27 min.

Screenwriter and director: Ivan I. Tverdovskij

Director of photography: Aleks Mikeladze

«Space Dog» — is when you deeply breath, as a dog, then you rise to wall and your throat is choked. After loss of consciousness, you can see special dreams, hallucinations in which the desirable stands out for the valid. «Space Dog» — is children’s ordinary game. There is a lot of similar names, all of them are called as «Choking Games». Games with suffocation. Our hero lives a full teenage life: school, friends, football, clubs, first love. When he was younger, he also played «Space Dog». Now he needs to return to it again. Approx. 1,000 teenager’s have died from the choking games in the world for the last 10 years.

Production: «KinoArtel»

Producer: Evgenij Kokuseev

TXIKI

Spain, 2012, 27 min.

Screenwriter and director:Sergio San Martin

Director of photography: Gail Duboi

TXIKI is a documentary piece structured around artist Txiki Medina (1958) and focused on the creative process of an oil painting. In order to put together his peculiar geometry, the artist takes inspiration from urban spaces and spoilt aspects of Nature, places filled with elements which, rather than sought, have been encountered.

Production: Paranoix Entertainment

Producer: Orianna Muccio

EMBERS

Liban, Armenie, Qatar, 2012, 77 min.

Screenwriter and director: Tamara Stepanyan

Directors of photography: Tamara Stepanyan, Tammam Hamza

A dialogue between two generations. A dialogue to explore the past and the present. Evocation of an era that is absent now yet some members of this time still exist . The subject of the film is ‘a feeling’. The feeling of loss and disappearance. Of a time that existed and now only the almost invisible remnants exist.

Production: Djinn House

Producer: Michele Tyan, Tamara Stepanyan

FRAU, FRAU, WHERE’S THE ROAD TO PILLAU?

Russia, St. Petersburg, 2012, 52 min.

Screenwriter and director: Tatyana Chistova

Director of photography: Aleksey Solodov

The stories of the «small» people that have happened with them in the small territory of East Prussia or the Kaliningrad region in the period from 1935 to 1948 and that have changed their life forever.

90-year-old Nivia faces an unexpected change. Her daughter Alicia, whom Nivia has lived with for ages, has found a new husband and wants to live with him. Nivia accuses her daughter of abandoning her. Both women embark on a revealing journey where the longing for a new love and the fear of growing old alone lead to a clash between mother and daughter.

Where do the children come from? Why should they exist? What do they want? Who are they going to be? Do we need a revolution? Where God and everything come from? The film is a trial to deal with all these questions refering to the children themselves.